


Shattered Pieces

by N1ghtshade



Series: Shatter 'verse [2]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Cute, Fluff, Gen, Missing Scenes, Werecreature AU, Weredragon Mako, oneshots, werewolf raleigh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 16:17:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14957939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/N1ghtshade/pseuds/N1ghtshade
Summary: Series of one shots in my Shatter 'verse. Cute stuff and missing scenes mostly.





	Shattered Pieces

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by finding a tumblr post (https://idiosyncraticidler.tumblr.com/post/157638412792/raleigh-becket-internal-use-bio-written-by) that had a long bio for Raleigh. One thing that stuck out to me for some reason was that one of his favorite foods is strawberries. One thing led to another and here’s this…

One thing they never told her about ferals in school is that shifting gives you weird cravings. Chuck explained that one to her, after she caught him one night in the kitchen, eating his way through one of the big ration cans of mustard. “Don’t judge me,” he’d told her, wiping some of it off on his stained shirt. “Happens after a long shift.”

So that’s one of the biggest things she’s wondering about when she gets out on the flight deck with Raleigh. _Well, besides whether my wingspan is going to be so big I damage the building. And if anyone’s going to see this and report me. Or if they think I’m affected by Kaiju blood to shift like this._ But thinking about what she’s going to be craving later makes her worry less about all that.

Raleigh’s standing nearby, even though she’s told him a dozen times to get farther back. She doesn’t know how big she’ll get but that dragon in her R.A.B.I.T. was massive.

“I’ll be fine. I trust you.” He looks better than he did two days ago, when they were about to ship him back to Alaska. She can still see the healing Drivesuit burns, and his bruises have faded to yellow and green instead of purple and blue, but he doesn’t have that hunted, terrified look in his eyes, and he seems like he’s standing a little straighter. Now he never has to worry about being taken back again. She doesn’t think she could ever thank the other pilots and crews enough.

Raleigh nods. He’s holding a blanket for her once she shifts back to human. It’s not like she’s shy, you can’t afford to be when you’re a Ranger. There’s too much Drivesuit fitting and locker room showering for that. But still, she appreciates it.

She’s been trying to prepare for this moment all day, but now that it’s come right down to it, she’s as nervous as she was for her first sim drop. _I don’t know if I want to do this._ Once she shifts, there is no going back.

She can see Newt and _Sensei_ , watching a tablet that is hooked to small, wireless biomonitors that should stay on her skin during the shift. They’ll know if something is going wrong. Chuck is there, his face bruised, but he looks less angry. She hasn’t really talked to him since the hallway fight, but she did talk to Herc and he said Chuck was working through a lot. Mako didn’t know how much he wanted to protect her. Maybe he’d always felt more for her than she did for him. She wonders if he was secretly hoping for them to be co-pilots after all the testing, hoping she’d come out as feral so they could work together. She needs to talk to him after this, clear the air between them. But for now, she has to shift before she loses her nerve.

She stretches her arms and feels the scales rippling up them, like they’re flipping over to reveal what’s under her skin. Her fingernails lengthen, her hips pop and she can _feel_ bones realigning. The light scrubs she was wearing, since they’re easily replaceable and with the dragon in her she’s warm even in the now-steady rain, strain and rip as her entire body structure morphs. Most ferals are smaller than their human form and can just shift in their clothes and then step out of them. Mako will have to remember not to shift when she’s wearing her favorite cardigan, the one that used to belong to Tasmin.

She feels her neck lengthen, _she’s actually growing extra bones and won’t Newt think this is the greatest_ and then she feels the wings. Her shoulder blades strain and then pop, and there’s an excruciating searing feeling in her back, and then the wind catches in leathery kites of blue wings, and almost rolls her backward. She flaps to keep balance and water flies off the helipad, drenching everyone in standing distance and almost knocking Raleigh on his back.

She might be able to fly, but she’s not sure she wants to try that right now because everything is _sore_ and she feels nauseous. She knows that’s going to happen the first few shifts. It’s hard to get used to your body tearing itself apart and rebuilding into something new. But with practice, she’ll get better.

She thinks she’s reached full shift now. She breathes in and out heavily to get rid of the sick to her stomach feeling, and steam rises from her nose. _Oh yeah, forgot the fire-breathing part of fire-breathing dragon._ As a matter of fact, her whole body is softly steaming, raindrops hissing off her scales. If she had more control she’d try to dry off the onlookers she just sluiced, but she doesn’t and she thinks Newt and Hermann and Raleigh and _Sensei_ would rather be wet than burned.

She’s about the size of one of the Cat I kaiju. Not enormous, but no pushover either. She’s never been tall, always one of the shortest in her classes, and this is a new and slightly vertigo-inducing development. The humans look so small now. But she can see _Sensei_ ’s grin. He’s proud of his dragon-daughter.

She focuses on bringing herself back down to size, because Herc and Raleigh both told her her first shift shouldn’t be more than five minutes or she’ll be miserable later. It’s almost as painful as turning into the dragon, and when she’s finally human she collapses on the helipad, never mind the rain and puddles against her naked skin. It feels good after the furnace in her stomach when she was the dragon. The heat is going to take getting used to.

Raleigh hurries over and rests the blanket around her shoulders, smiling softly, and she knows he remembers her doing the same for him in the hangar bay after they bought him back. She twists her fingers into his. _Thank you. For making my first shift feel okay. Like I’m not a monster._ She can’t imagine how traumatized Raleigh must be, after years of being seen as subhuman and treated accordingly. _And he’s still so kind_. She doesn’t know if she could have been that strong, and for a moment she feels guilt. _I hid because I was afraid of going through what he did. What right to I have to expect kindness from him when I let him suffer and would never want to take his place?_

She forgot about the ghost Drifting. Raleigh kneels beside her, ignoring the rain puddles soaking his cargo pants. “Hey, hey, Mako, don’t do that.” _I wouldn’t want anyone to go through that, much less you. No one should have to be treated that way._

“But you were.” She can’t shake the pictures rushing through her mind. A wolf, starving and filthy, cringing away from her in a cage, covered in raw, infected cuts and sores. Raleigh panicking in the Kwoon fights, seeing every opponent as someone who might kill him without a second thought. The R.A.B.I.T., the cages and shouting and pain and blood. Her co-pilot dragged away from her, beaten and naked and locked in a cage, frightened and cold and lost.

He shudders slightly, and she tries to control the memories. _Way to make things worse, Mako._ He rests his forehead against hers.

 _Mako, that’s all in the past. I can leave it there. You’re here now and you make me feel human. Nothing else matters._ He takes her hand and helps her to her feet, and she can hear Newt rushing over, probably ready to ask her questions a mile a minute. She also hears _Sensei_ stopping him. _Thank you. I don’t think I’m quite ready for that yet._ She’s oddly hungry, and more than anything what she wants right now is a huge bowl of strawberries, with whipped cream to dip them into.

“Wait, why do I want strawberries?” _That’s Raleigh’s shift craving, I know that from the Drift. I would have thought I’d want green tea ice cream, or plums._ Those are her stress cravings, so she’d assumed a shift one would be the same.

“I don’t think most ferals have Drifted before they have their first full shift. Your dragon first got strong in Drift with me, when you saw her. Maybe you just picked up parts of mine.” She has to laugh, because of all the things she and Raleigh could share, a shift craving would have to be one.

“I’m sure we can convince one of the cooks to give us some. They’ve usually got some fresh fruit laying around, benefits of an open port,” Mako smiles.

“Us?” Raleigh has fallen in step with her, which is good because her legs are shaky and she’d rather not faceplant on the helipad.

“Don’t tell me you’re not craving them too. I can tell.”

“Stupid Drift hangovers.” But he’s smiling. Really, genuinely smiling, and Mako thinks that makes her stomach feel warmer than dragon fire.


End file.
